


Scrapbook

by proxydialogue



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, meta fuckery, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:37:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proxydialogue/pseuds/proxydialogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death and love. Is there a difference?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scrapbook

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to vialatt, subjecttochange8 and city-of-words (the last two of which are tumblr presences) because they requested some things, and I failed in all ways to meet them.

He does not actually care about them. That would be deranged. A thing like him cannot care, and certainly not about the wellbeing of two instantaneous blinks in the fabric such as they are. But he does pride himself on his good taste. And he appreciates the art of them; the beauty for the sake of that beauty itself. 

They follow the close, cyclical rotation of a binary star system. Or circling fireflies, perhaps, since to compare them with the stars risks suggesting they have longevity, and they don’t. They are brief. They are flashes. They have only just begun and they already are practically over. 

The loud mouth and the disobedient one. Their names are in his personal book. (This does not imply they are important, only that he has bothered to notice them at all. And the loud one, there are words he has for the loud one. Lessons to give about respect.) He catches their light, sometimes, winking in the corner of his eye. He will turn and observe them for a time, not much, since he is busy; but there are glances he can spare. 

He is not a painter himself, but a connoisseur of art, a collector. 

Dean Winchester and Castiel. They don’t have the same vibrant colors of Earth’s early lovers, but he finds the short, staccato brushwork of them appealing. And the use of the shadows and various grays is…most sublime. 

 

 

**Beginning:**

_Two silhouettes, toe to toe before the burning light of a window. The orange and white glow of the room behind the glass is reminiscent of the fires of hell. But the dirty rust of the wet street and the uncertain outlines of the silhouettes serves to pull the viewer’s eye forward to the center. Two throats, two open mouths._

_If you look at the black outlines of their profiles they appear to be arguing. If you look at the burnished negative space between them, they appear to be in the aftermath of an unexpected kiss._

_It rains._

The uncertainty of the meaning makes this picture beautiful. Is it anger or love between them? Or both? 

The light of the window is clearly metaphorical, representative of the place they have both just escaped from. But the visual comfort of it, the promise of a dry, warm room when they are standing in the rain, makes you question if they ever really wanted to leave? 

Though Dean is taller, Castiel holds the weight of the composition. Even the light seems to tip in his direction, giving him a fierce halo that shines through the triangle of space between his waist and the bend in his elbow. Castiel slants the ground beneath his feet and forces the focus up with the rise of his chin. An amateur might look and think that Castiel holds all the power. There is violence to the stretch of his neck, and threat in the spread of his fingers. 

He’s dangerous. 

But, and it’s an easy thing to miss, Dean’s left hand is between them. Not closed in a fist, but opened, palm hovering just over Castiel’s stomach, unnoticed. The hand angled upwards, so that, if it held a knife, the blade would be reaching from the bottom of Castiel’s ribs up into his lungs, driving in the direction of his heart. 

The details are important. Once you have seen that, it’s impossible to imagine that Castiel is the one in control. It must be the opposite. The angel is caught in a wild spiral downwards. And Dean is in a position to either catch him, or to hold the spear for him to land on.

 

 

**Signature:**

_In black and white._

_They are in the morning light of a long empty road. Dean leans against the hood of the black car, both hands on the hood, agony on his face, spine bowed around the stain that spreads from his stomach into the fabric of his shirt. There is a raised handprint visible on his shoulder._

_Castiel stands before him, one hand holding him upright and the other cupped and raised. Whatever black substance is spilling out of Dean is also pooled in that hand and Castiel stares at it._

There are only two true blacks here. The car and the blood. 

What he likes about this one is the implied. The scar on Dean’s shoulder is old, left over from the day he was pulled out of hell. And the blood on Castiel’s hand is fresh, still carrying the warmth of Dean’s body. 

But, from the slope of Dean’s head towards Castiel’s shoulder, and the stunned worry on Castiel’s face as he stares at his hand, it is unclear who has burned whom. 

 

 

 **Unseen:**

_The sepia and brown of autumn in Dean’s skin. He is sitting on the back steps of a house, the figures of a boy and a woman are visible through the kitchen window but they are looking at each other and not at Dean. Dean is hunched, leaning on his knees, and there is a crumpled piece paper he is smoothing out on his thigh._

_Castiel stands behind him. Arms slack. Shoulders unrested. You cannot tell the color of his eyes, but his mouth is blue with shadow._

Perspectives are often important. And position. Sometimes art is not about what the viewer sees at all, but about what the subject sees. Or doesn’t see. 

Dean is looking down at his paper, unaware of the angel behind his shoulder. And Castiel is looking at Dean’s back, oblivious of the paper. 

If Dean were to turn or Castiel step forward the distance of the portrait would fall instantly apart. The fragility is what keeps you looking. Castiel, spying on his human, and Dean, holding an Enochian summoning in his hand. Neither has any idea the other is looking for him. 

 

 

**Dream:**

_Unrecognizable._

_Two beasts in the heart of the place where worst-fears are born. One is startling awake from a nightmare, pitch black eyes and mangled fingers, to find himself in the arms of another nightmare. For his companion is a creature. Great, tattered, vulture-like wings hang crooked from his back; his scarred face is hideous._

_Both are repulsive. Both are monstrous._

_The beasts cling to each other._

It is his favorite. The beauty is in the deformity.

Dean and Castiel, after so long in the womb of the purgatory, are becoming their own monsters. And they are horrified with themselves and with each other. They are sickened by the very sight of themselves. 

And yet, the gentle scrape of their claws and the naked sheen of their teeth, defies their repugnance. They want nothing more than solitude, they crave destruction and death. But they are still helpless against the very fact their basic selves. 

Who have always been in love with each other. 

 

 

 **The Fall:**

_The voyeur smiles in the background. His face is made of pastels._

_Dean and Castiel don’t know they are observed. Their eyes are closed, foreheads together, tiny, guilty smiles composed of light and shadow. Their lips are pink and bitten. Dean’s hand hovers between them again, angled upwards in the same gesture from the beginning. But the heavy imbalance of Castiel’s weight is gone, the ground doesn’t slant and the negative space doesn’t shine._

_It’s a picture of three humans._

_They are all inside. Outside it rains._

There is a lot in this one. As though the painter thought time was running out.

By now it is obvious that there is almost always a window included. It’s a symbol of transparency; a sign that these moments between Dean and Castiel, though intimate, are meant to be viewed. There is something greater the artist intended others to take from them. 

It was probably some cliché like: Love Conquers All. But _he_ is a skilled critic and he looks further.

Sam’s presence is suggestive, a third party who might yet come between them. Though, more likely, he is another reinforcement of transparency. 

The inversion of the outside and inside is what really interests him. This is a peaceful picture, certainly, but in the beginning the room signified Hell, and the rain was discomfort and freedom. Now that they are indoors, is he to assume they are trapped again? 

Perhaps the real message is that love is the only inescapable hell. 

“Or perhaps,” he muses out loud. “It is intended for me.” 

He is inescapable too, after all. 

 

 

**Endings:**

_Dean Winchester, gasping for air as his lungs fill with blood. On a sidewalk with bullet holes in his chest, holding his brother’s hand._

_He is at least fifty-three._

 

_Cas Winchester, on his knees in the garden, his hand grips his throat. He has landed on his lilies and the shape of his body shows the arc of his last fall._

The final pictures are separate but simultaneous. It cannot be said that he has no mercy. He could have taken them one at a time and left Castiel behind, to the rest of his human life; instead he takes them together. 

He reaches beneath the trap doors in their hearts and opens each catch. Two lives drop into his arms and he cradles them. They gasp and blink and find each other. They don’t even notice him and he doesn’t speak (he’s decided that whatever he could have taught Dean about respect is moot anyway, now that he’s here.) They stare, surprised to find they aren’t alone. 

Then they tip forward and curl together, inseparable. And they make soft sounds of sadness and relief because they don’t realize yet that there is no more pain. He waits until they quiet, and then slips them into his pocket. 

Death smiles. 

His black pen scratches their names out of his book.


End file.
